Poor retention of physician-scientists in the work force is a major impediment to progress in biomedical research, and the leaky pipeline of junior physician-scientists was exacerbated after the COVID-19 pandemic. We report the results of a multi-institutional survey aimed at assessing hiring practice patterns among academic deans and department chairs, with 34 responses before and 70 responses after the COVID-19 pandemic. We found that private institutions tend to provide greater startup support across all areas of research, including basic science, translational, and clinical arenas, with NIH funding and publication volume predicting the level of support. We found that half of respondents provide research RVUs. The COVID-19 pandemic adversely impacted the availability of supplemental internal funding and bridge funding, which catalyzed institutions to support junior faculty through endowments. Yet, we found that junior faculty had to rearrange clinical schedules to increase clinical productivity. We also found that childcare policies were more robust at private institutions. These data highlight hiring practices across a cohort of academic deans and department chairs to improve transparency of the hiring process for junior faculty candidates approaching their first independent position. Providing greater transparency in hiring practices can help physician-scientist trainees find a good fit for their faculty position and can help stave off attrition from this pipeline.

The authors have declared no competing interest.

Funding for this study was provided by the American Junior Investigator Association.

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The details of the IRB/oversight body that provided approval or exemption for the research described are given below:

This study was IRB-approved at Massachusetts General Hospital (IRB Approval: 2021P002704).

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Conflicts of Interest: EKN is the co-founder and CEO of Destroke, Inc.

AO has no relevant conflicts.

SJ has no relevant conflicts.

JMK has no relevant conflicts.

Declarations: Ethics approval and consent to participate: This study was IRB-approved at Massachusetts General Hospital (IRB Approval: 2021P002704).

Consent for publication: Not applicable.

Funding: Funding for this study was provided by the American Junior Investigator Association.

Data Availability Statement: The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

All data produced in the present study are available upon reasonable request to the authors